Martin Clunes is worlds away from Doc Martin in gritty new TV drugs drama
Doc Martin star Martin Clunes is joined by Andy Serkis' son Louis Ashbourne Serkis in new gritty drama which sees a Welsh farmer and his son become embroiled in drugs trafficking and gangs
Doc Martin star Martin Clunes has left the sleepy Cornish village of Portwenn behind for rural Wales and drug dealers in the gritty drama series Out There.
Martin, 63, plays Nathan Williams, a local farmer who has a huge, and potentially deadly, problem on his hands when his son Johnny gets embroiled with county lines drug trafficking. Out There marks Martin’s first drama since the end of Doc Martin, which ran for 18 years, but he insists he never had any plans for this to be his next job.
“I just go where my wife tells me!” laughs Martin, who has been married to TV producer Philippa Braithwaite since 1997. “I go for the next thing, and I never have a plan, but I like being outdoors. I’m happiest when everything’s off a lorry and in a field. This was a very physical job, but we felt it was important to show that constant labour of farming. There’s always something to do.”
Taking on the role of teenager Johnny is Louis Ashbourne Serkis. At 20 years old, the son of actors Andy Serkis and Lorraine Ashbourne has already starred in Endeavour, Allelujah and The Queen’s Gambit.
“It’s been great to watch my work back with my parents, even though I did feel some pressure,” admits Louis. “But at the end of the day they’re my mum and dad and when you’ve got something that you’re proud of it’s nice to sit down and watch it with them.
“I was never obliged to take part in what they do and they never forced acting on me, but I love it. I love bringing joy through that. When you get the opportunity to tell a story and to inspire people, I think you should take it.”
“Louis’ parents came to our cast and crew screening – they were very proud of him,” adds Martin, who became a household name after starring in 90s sitcom Men Behaving Badly.
In the six-part series, Nathan and Johnny are living on their farm, trying to carry on with their lives two years after a tragic death in the family.
“Nathan’s got this unrelenting life on the farm, every single day there’s stuff that needs doing, there’s no downtime, but at the same time he’s being a diligent father,” says Martin. “He’s putting the lasagne in the microwave and taking Johnny to and from school. It’s a little sad because it’s only two years since Nathan lost his wife and Johnny’s mother, so that wound is ever present.”
Disaster strikes when Johnny is left to his own devices and is asked by a “friend” to look after a parcel, and the actors tease that everything spirals from there.
“Johnny’s going through everything that a boy of his age should be going through, and then the horrible industry tricks him and seizes him away,” teases Martin. “You do hear parents of kids that have been subsumed by this industry saying that, talking like they’ve lost their child. When Nathan first comes across the county lines, he doesn’t even know that’s what it is, he thinks it’s just drug dealing. Nathan thinks he can deal with it by being taller and stronger than the people involved, but he very swiftly learns that’s not the case.”
Also involved with the county lines business is the girl Johnny has a crush on, Sadie (Carly-Sophia Davies), which Louis insists is another reason why Johnny goes along with the task.
“When there’s someone that you adore and that you have a crush on; if she asks you to do something like minding a package, Johnny’s going to do it,” says Louis. “Johnny also doesn’t have many people in his life, he has his father, he has Sadie and that’s about it. So when he gets asked to mind the package, I don’t think he knows what he’s getting himself into. Actually it’s him doing a good deed that gets him into all of this, it catapults him into a series of unfortunate events.”
As both Martin and Louis were born in London, they had an extra task too – learning how to do a convincing Welsh accent.
“I had coaching and a few dialect lessons, but it was mainly with the help of Welsh-speaking people on set where we tweaked it,” explains Louis. “It was interesting finding the similarities and the differences with me and Martin because we’re not Welsh, and we were definitely going to have different accents.”
“To be fair, I never heard two accents the same when we were filming,” says Martin. “That’s what I used to say when we did a Cornish accent for Doc Martin anyway!”
Out There starts on ITV1 and ITVX on Sunday, January 19th at 9pm
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